Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Getting students to read directions

What are we doing?What do I do now?What directions?I’m done.Whatta ya mean I’m sposed to create a spreadsheet?

Verbal directions with middle schoolers really don’t work that well – especially multi-step directions.They don’t listen past the first sentence, if they listen at all.So of course I have written directions.But that presupposes they READ the directions.

I’m still experimenting.Moodle, unlike D2L, doesn’t show the “news” or teacher messages when students first come into the course; they would have to click on a link.Will they click on the link?Since they never have, I closed the “news” module entirely.

Besides not reading the directions, middle schoolers are not big on sequence.They tend to click around rather randomly, so I need to 1) carefully organize materials and 2) “hide” anything I don’t want them to be distracted by.Within each activity (like a discussion), there’s room for directions; the problem is getting them to do more than one activity, to do the activities a particular sequence, and to understand the deadlines.

Right now, I’m experimenting with adding the directions for the day/week right in with the activities.I write them on a Moodle label and place them just before the activities I want students to engage in.

They still ask:What are we doing?What do I do now?What directions?But at least not as often. ;)

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Fran Lo is a teacher trainer (for teachers in grades 6 to 12) and a teacher (Social Studies, English, and Technology). Her English classes incorporate so much technology that they have become hybrid/blended classes.